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People don’t realize. When we were kids we didn’t do hard drugs because we thought we’d go to prison. If you take away the threat of incarceration, the addicti

People don’t realize. When we were kids we didn’t do hard drugs because we thought we’d go to prison. If you take away the threat of incarceration, the addiction and health dangers probably won’t do much to deter a sizable group of young people and that’s a problem. Prison is bad for drug users. But perhaps we forgot the unintended consequences of taking away any legal deterrent to using.

brutusborn 4y ago
Is there any evidence that prohibition reduces harms from drugs? My understanding was that it marginally reduced use, but significantly increased harms (due to impure drugs, interactions with criminals, treatment budgets being used for incarceration etc.) It's probably drug-specific too. Making alcohol illegal probably caused more harm than making heroin illegal, since alcohol substitutes are often much more toxic than the real deal)
- CharlesW 4y ago
  > Making alcohol illegal probably caused more harm than making heroin illegal, since alcohol substitutes are often much more toxic than the real deal) The same is apparently true for heroin. For example, unregulated heroin can often be a "scramble" cut with fentanyl. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6114137/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6114137/
- abigail95 4y ago
  Opiate addiction and associated harms are way higher in countries where it's been easier to access them. The countries that never legalised things like Oxycontin didn't see the same rises in opiate abuse. It seems obvious to conclude that increasing Oxycontin use as a legal alternative to heroin didn't decrease harm overall.
  - brutusborn 4y ago
    The opiate epidemic seems to me a US-specific case of deregulation, where doctors are essentially marketing these drugs to people where they won't required and without mechanisms to prevent doctor shopping, which I guess is similar to legalization but a bit more insidious. I would contrast that to Portugal where for all intents Heroin is essentially legal, but legal use is highly regulated and connected to rehabilitation programs. I think highly regulated legalization of drugs > unregulated legalizing of drugs OR prohibition of drugs (which by definition is unregulated). Whether prohibition is better than unregulated legalization depends on how effective your law enforcement is. In the US, the large number of illegal drug addicts is evidence that enforcement is ineffective. If we lived in an effective authoritarian state then prohibition would probably minimize harm, but even authoritarian states fail to stop drug use.
CharlesW 4y ago
> When we were kids we didn’t do hard drugs because we thought we’d go to prison. Isn't this like saying, "as religious young people, we didn't commit violent acts because we thought we'd go to hell"? Was the threat of prison really the primary factor preventing you from shooting up heroin as a kid? (That's an argument in your favor if it was, but that's a foreign concept for me.)
benreesman 4y ago
Or just stop prohibition, which is probably the most disastrous policy of all time, wildly infringes clear civil liberties unambiguously intended by the framers, and finances cartels so sophisticated that they are effectively narco governments and so deeply intertwined with our enforcement apparatus that we’re effectively paying administrators in those cartels. There’s one answer that makes any sense. It’s not politically feasible, yet, but there’s just one answer. I know drugs cause damage. Prohibition always, always, always causes way more.
- yucky 4y ago
  >Or just stop prohibition Isn't that effectively what has happened when they're openly selling it on sidewalk tables..? Doesn't sound like it worked.
specproc 4y ago
> People don’t realize. When we were kids we didn’t do hard drugs because we thought we’d go to prison. I'm not sure when you were a kid, but that wasn't much of a deterrent when I was 20 or so years ago. I don't think there's been a huge change in the incentive structure since.
salawat 4y ago
>People don’t realize. When we were kids we didn’t do hard drugs because we thought we’d go to prison. That's all that kept you from doing? The possibilities of developing physiological dependence, shitty Quality Control/amateur chemistry leading to contamination, ending up dependent on people willing to kill other people over routine business matters, etc... wasn't enough to set off "bad idea" circuits in your head? Hell, just doing the research into the the bloody substances synthesis pathways was enough to get me to largely nope out of the idea. ...Jesus. That the cops may bust me was the least of my concerns. If the only message getting through to kids is "the cops'll getcha" we have soooo many better ways to get across how these substances are not a good idea to trifle with.

brutusborn 4y ago

Is there any evidence that prohibition reduces harms from drugs? My understanding was that it marginally reduced use, but significantly increased harms (due to impure drugs, interactions with criminals, treatment budgets being used for incarceration etc.) It's probably drug-specific too. Making alcohol illegal probably caused more harm than making heroin illegal, since alcohol substitutes are often much more toxic than the real deal)

CharlesW 4y ago
> Making alcohol illegal probably caused more harm than making heroin illegal, since alcohol substitutes are often much more toxic than the real deal) The same is apparently true for heroin. For example, unregulated heroin can often be a "scramble" cut with fentanyl. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6114137/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6114137/
abigail95 4y ago
Opiate addiction and associated harms are way higher in countries where it's been easier to access them. The countries that never legalised things like Oxycontin didn't see the same rises in opiate abuse. It seems obvious to conclude that increasing Oxycontin use as a legal alternative to heroin didn't decrease harm overall.
- brutusborn 4y ago
  The opiate epidemic seems to me a US-specific case of deregulation, where doctors are essentially marketing these drugs to people where they won't required and without mechanisms to prevent doctor shopping, which I guess is similar to legalization but a bit more insidious. I would contrast that to Portugal where for all intents Heroin is essentially legal, but legal use is highly regulated and connected to rehabilitation programs. I think highly regulated legalization of drugs > unregulated legalizing of drugs OR prohibition of drugs (which by definition is unregulated). Whether prohibition is better than unregulated legalization depends on how effective your law enforcement is. In the US, the large number of illegal drug addicts is evidence that enforcement is ineffective. If we lived in an effective authoritarian state then prohibition would probably minimize harm, but even authoritarian states fail to stop drug use.

CharlesW 4y ago

> When we were kids we didn’t do hard drugs because we thought we’d go to prison. Isn't this like saying, "as religious young people, we didn't commit violent acts because we thought we'd go to hell"? Was the threat of prison really the primary factor preventing you from shooting up heroin as a kid? (That's an argument in your favor if it was, but that's a foreign concept for me.)

benreesman 4y ago

Or just stop prohibition, which is probably the most disastrous policy of all time, wildly infringes clear civil liberties unambiguously intended by the framers, and finances cartels so sophisticated that they are effectively narco governments and so deeply intertwined with our enforcement apparatus that we’re effectively paying administrators in those cartels. There’s one answer that makes any sense. It’s not politically feasible, yet, but there’s just one answer. I know drugs cause damage. Prohibition always, always, always causes way more.

yucky 4y ago
>Or just stop prohibition Isn't that effectively what has happened when they're openly selling it on sidewalk tables..? Doesn't sound like it worked.

specproc 4y ago

> People don’t realize. When we were kids we didn’t do hard drugs because we thought we’d go to prison. I'm not sure when you were a kid, but that wasn't much of a deterrent when I was 20 or so years ago. I don't think there's been a huge change in the incentive structure since.

salawat 4y ago

>People don’t realize. When we were kids we didn’t do hard drugs because we thought we’d go to prison. That's all that kept you from doing? The possibilities of developing physiological dependence, shitty Quality Control/amateur chemistry leading to contamination, ending up dependent on people willing to kill other people over routine business matters, etc... wasn't enough to set off "bad idea" circuits in your head? Hell, just doing the research into the the bloody substances synthesis pathways was enough to get me to largely nope out of the idea. ...Jesus. That the cops may bust me was the least of my concerns. If the only message getting through to kids is "the cops'll getcha" we have soooo many better ways to get across how these substances are not a good idea to trifle with.